Texas Womens Health Care Is on the Line!

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March 05, 2012

[img_assist|nid=26769|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=300|height=87]Texas may have celebrated Independence Day on Friday, but the battle is not over. Its time to load your proverbial cannon and to continue fighting for economic freedom and for states rights. Today, we are focused on the federal governments willingness to put politics before womens health.

The federal government is willing to stop federal funding which provides preventative health care and screenings for women all in name of one of their key supporters, Planned Parenthood.
The Texas legislature passed SB 7 which stipulated what type of providers could receive funding. That legislation restricted providers and disqualified Planned Parenthood.

The Texas waiver for the Womens Health Program is up for renewal and the Obama Administration is not agreeing to renew the waiver unless Planned Parenthood is approved as a provider.

It appears the Obama Administration wants and expects Texas to ignore our laws and to provide Planned Parenthood with funding as a preferred provider or they will deny our waiver extension. Planned Parenthood receives only 2% of the program funds, but for that Obama officials are willing to put the most vulnerable population of Texas women at risk to support their own political agenda.

Denying Texas these funds will impact more than 100,000 Texas women annually as it will cut off access to screenings for breast and cervical cancer, hypertension and diabetes, STD testing and family planning services for Texas women who otherwise could not afford them.

While putting their political agenda first, Obama is trampling States Rights and Texas 10th Amendment rights.

Texas citizens: these are your tax dollars which are being used essentially as extortion  to force us to abandon our state law and force Texas into submission to the federal government.

AFP is on record opposing Planned Parenthood funding. Here is a portion of that letter signed March of 2011:

 Over the past two years, domestic discretionary spending has exploded by 84 percent. This increase, due largely to spending under the guise of economic stimulus, is only the tip of the iceberg  the Presidents latest budget plan calls for spending to average almost 23 percent of GDP, a share of the economy almost three percent higher than the historical average. Whats worse, the President hopes to make this government bloat permanent; Obama has proposed freezing discretionary spending at its current levels, a move that would increase spending to over $4 trillion in 2016 and put taxpayers on the hook for almost $9 trillion in new spending over the next decade.

The time to get serious about spending is right now, and every avenue must be immediately attacked in order to curb our destructive spiral of spending. No program or department can be off limits.

On economic merit alone, Planned Parenthood should be near the top of the cut list. To begin with, as Chuck Donovan at the Heritage Foundation has pointed out, Planned Parenthood is awash in net income. From 2002 to 2007, the national organization and its affiliates took in $388 million more than they spent on programs and services. Even in the midst of the recession, the president of the organization still received more than $337,000 in an annual salary and tens of thousands more in benefits and allowances. Planned Parenthood is receiving a rolling, annual bailout-and they dont even need it.

AFPs issue is with the spending and stimulus.

Texas has another beef with Planned Parenthood.

Gov. Rick Perry said in his statement: Because Texas refuses to fund abortion providers and their affiliates, the federal government has announced that it will cancel the Women’s Health Program. To me, this reflects a twisted set of values, not to mention a continued disregard for the basic concept of states’ rights.

He continued:  Here in Texas, we will continue to fight back against all manner of federal encroachment into our lives President Obama, please abandon this misguided and unhealthy course of action and allow the Texas Women’s Health Program to continue providing preventative health care and cancer screenings for Texas women.

If you want to stop the federal government from dictating to Texas how to spend our tax dollars, please contact your congressman today  and let Gov. Perry know that you support his efforts to fight this federal overreach.